


When You're Gone Away

by Glory_Jean



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 19:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11470362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glory_Jean/pseuds/Glory_Jean
Summary: Angels were frightening enough. Fallen angels didn't bear thinking about.(or why I shouldn't stay up late reading angsty fic and listening to emo rock)Linked drabbles that refuse to add up to 100. meh, stupid angsty fix-it.





	When You're Gone Away

I  


The silence is oppressive, heavy with the weight of things never said. It's never the noise and chaos of war that breaks you. But the deadly silence that follows. The empty and broken spaces, devoid of the life that made them home. White walls in white rooms full of dust that feels like ashes on his skin.

He walks slowly, quietly, hushing his footsteps, afraid to hear the sound that would make this real. If he lets himself feel right now, he would shatter like the glass wall he broke not so long ago. Or like universes if he followed his heart's desire. Foreshadowing and irony, he decides, are better left to books.

II

She'd always known her destiny. Even before she cracked open time and drank its heart. Now it's merely anti-climax. The timelines rush through her head (not that she ever let _him_ know) largely unreadable to her human brain, but every so often something sticks. And the urgent certainty that this universe is utterly _wrong_ in every way gets stronger each day. At first, with the Doctor by her side, the wrongness felt like exhilaration. A fix to the adrenalin junkie. Now it's something akin to pain. Needles prickling her skin. She'd give anything for a console to crack open now. But she doesn't think that time is quite done with her yet.

III

He sees time as he always has; a spreading web in his mind's eye, at once connecting the universe and forcing it apart. A dance of entropy and creation, order and death. And no one else left to witness it with him. He fears his isolation, just as he fears the chaos wrought to those who would follow him. But in his most terrible dreams he sees only himself and what he could do without a touchstone to weight him to the ground. In nightmares that aren't (even in sleep the timelines plague him), he sees red clay earth and water and desperation.  He can never escape the dust, it seems.

The dust of Gallifrey, somehow still clinging to the TARDIS.

The dust of the void swirling like a cloak with his every step.

The dust of each failure, each death, each victory.

Angels are frightening enough. Fallen angels don't bear thinking about.

 

IV

She'd shot her body through walls more solid than steel and lived - all to be by his side when the end came. The most foolish daredevil stunt performer was put to shame. But he is changed, distant. Or maybe she just sees him differently now with more mileage on her body and what feels like decades tacked onto her soul. Either way, she's invested a lot in this life. She isn't prepared to give up easily.

She knows too much of loss and let a dying TARDIS once more into her soul. She carries her own secrets now, but she won't let his keep her at a distance.

V

He's afraid to hold her too tightly. He's afraid he's not holding her tightly enough. He can't bear to let her out of sight and yet he doesn't want to smother her. He wants to wrap her in cotton wool. He wants to see her fly free. He doesn't know how to do this.

***

The universe is right. But the world is wrong. She doesn't belong and she's never been so glad to be home. 

She wants him to reassure her but spends all her time reassuring him; _I'm back, I'm staying, I'll never let go_. 

But she only wants to hear; _you're all right, you're here, I won't let you go_.

 

VI

Sometimes songs begin. Sometimes they end. But they still need to be sung.

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired from _Broken_ performed by Seether and Amy Lee
> 
>    
> This fic is very old and probably would have qualified as "song-fic" - something no one writes anymore. Possibly originally written to a prompt from a long ago (and long gone) livejournal community called "Songs in Time" but never posted. Originally included some quoted song lyrics at the beginning. A blast from the past for my fellow old people and a bit of fic archaeology for everyone else.


End file.
